Following the study completed in 2013, measuring English, Filipino and Ilokano reading skills, this 2014 EGRA study is serves as a baseline for monitoring the government's Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) program by conducting EGRA assessments in four mother-tongue languages—Cebuano (Sinugbuanong Binisaya), Hiligaynon, Ilokano and Maguindanaoan. The survey also included classroom observations of teaching practice and teacher interviews to gather contextual information about the extent of MTB-MLE implementation.

The present report describes the results of two reading assessments that were carried out to measure performance of a representative national sample of children reading English and Filipino at the end of grade 3 (Objective 1, above) and a regional sample of children reading Ilokano in grade 1 (Objective 2, above). The first included a national sample of 2,463 students, selected in a stratified, random framework to be representative of six geographic areas: North Luzon, Metro Manila, South Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The second was a regional sample of 494 children in 50 schools selected randomly in Region 1 from all schools who reported having begun implementation of Ilokano instruction in school year 2012–2013 or 2011–2012.